


Destroyer of Worlds

by rispacooper



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Fuckbuddies, M/M, Nerdiness, Romance, Spoilers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:44:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are different than they were. This maybe isn't as bad as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destroyer of Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> It gets a little smushy toward the end. Also, you know, THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

There were rules for this sort of thing to work, rules for office, so to speak, romance, and rules for not getting fired or dishonorably discharged, and rules to keep your coworkers and friends from teasing the ever-loving shit out of you, and most importantly, rules for fucking around with a friend without ever hinting that _your_ feelings at least were more than friendly. 

Those rules included no touching outside of sex, no kissing ever, no fucking around while on missions, no displays of jealousy, no breathy moans straight out of porn or exclamations that you want to be the Kirk to their Spock, and absolutely never, ever fucking around somewhere where the team could find you. 

It was a shame that Jake wasn’t really the type to pay attention to rules. None of them were of course, not when the rules got in the way, or were just incredibly, unbelievably stupid, but sometimes rules could be useful, like _keep your weapon with you at all times, Jensen_ , or _keep your spare pair of glasses in any pocket but your back pants pocket, Jensen_ , and _whatever you do, Jake, keep talking to Pooch like nothing was wrong when Cougar slips out of the bar with some hot woman under his arm_. 

The thing about rules though was that they weren’t exactly laws, not that anyone on the team had any problems in disregarding laws either, when Clay had found it expedient or they were authorized to do so, like that one time just outside of Bahawalpur... which was a story for another time, or never, unless it was declassified. 

The team, and by extension, Jake, operated more on a code system. A really cool one, kind of an open source code, in that there were some things you knew on your own and other things you got from the others if you weren’t sure they were okay. His sister had said once that that was kind of fucked up, no matter how useful it might be in a combat situation, because where did you get your sense of right and wrong if someone on the team failed you, but that was like… blasphemy… and anyway, as Jake had told her then, it would never happen so there was nothing to worry about. 

Ha. It wasn’t funny, he knew that, except in that ‘it hurts when I laugh’ way, like thinking about a dishonorable discharge after being left for dead and abandoned by his government and then, once he was already officially disgraced for something he didn’t do, learning that DADT was on its way out anyway. 

It was _so_ hilarious he’d spent his first month in Bolivia focused on making dolls and getting drunk and then the next month building computers from whatever parts he could find so he could track the Petunias from afar and _not_ watching Cougar wake up from a similar alcoholic haze to make friends with every single woman in the factory, just so he could stop himself from laughing.  


Anyway, it turned out when you laughed to yourself at a joke you couldn’t talk about, your team thought you’d finally gone insane. Which implied they’d _already_ thought you were sort of insane and what was that about? 

Insanity meant trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, or not knowing your right from wrong and though he couldn’t speak about the first, one, Jake knew right from wrong, mostly. He knew it the way he knew good and great from fucked up. Okay, the way he knew that _mostly_. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. Like when you hadn’t been laid in like, forever, and you were stuck for the eleventy-billionth day in a row in some claustrophobic motel room with an injured, cranky, not-legless Pooch and you’re supposed to be laying low, so you can’t sneak out in search of action, and meanwhile in the room with you was your badass sniper teammate, who was used to getting laid way more often than you and who was really hot and who, coincidentally, made your heart skip beats in a really alarming way and who, once upon a time, had made you come on a fairly regular basis. 

Times like that, it was tempting to miss the good-old-bad-old-fucked-up days, when your team had been—seemed—whole and trustworthy and the government had had your back—provided you didn’t talk in public about liking dick—and you’d been happy to let Cougar fuck you into incoherent babbling as long it kept happening, and never once did you hope for a different ending than him going to sleep in his own bed, something with cuddles and jokes and maybe a glancing touch of his hand on your back in front of the team to let them know what was what. Because that _would_ have been insane. Outside of even the Losers’ loose and informal set of guidelines, Jake was pretty sure, even back in the pre-Bolivian shitstorm days.

They’d all had labels then, ranks, a system to get around the system, or reach around it, if he wanted to be funny. Because you needed to know what the rules were to break them, which, it turned out, was the code that everything was built from: the Army, Black ops, the world, life. Now they were losers with no rules and it felt like they had nothing. Now they were outlaws, renegades, pirates… and no matter how many times he said that, Pooch still didn’t seem amused. 

Pooch _might_ see the light when he woke up and found himself wearing Jake’s cool pirate hat, but Jake kind of doubted it. It hadn’t stopped him though, because that was how _outlaw renegade pirate_ worked, and anyway, Cougar hadn’t said anything when Jake had dropped it onto Pooch’s head, so it was probably okay. 

Shit. Jake caught his own thought and paused for a second. It was a habit, looking to the others, to Cougar, for their opinions. Jake really ought to stop that. He stared hard at his computer screen instead until the uncomfortable thought that he might not even be a loser anymore, that he might not even have a team anymore, went away, until it was at the back of his mind and the front of his mind and also maybe the middle were wondering how outlaw renegade pirates set up dates online and if he’d have to redefine ‘on the down low’ to explain why he wasn’t out to his friends, or if he even _had_ to explain.

If their team wasn’t what he’d thought, then anything and everything could be up in the air. Jake looked over at the thought, again, and realized how he was hunched over his laptop, though he didn’t straighten. He stayed very, very still. Ghillie suit in the grass for three days and watching his target still. 

Cougar was just as motionless, sitting in a chair by the window just at the edge of Jake’s vision. It was a lot like being back in Bolivia, like Roque leaving them, dying, or it was like watching that helicopter blow up again and being dead too, back when Cougar and Jake had been in the same room but nobody had been talking and when Cougar _had_ spoken, it had been in Spanish to some foxy señorita and Jake had made sure not to look up and had gone back to rewriting some code to make it do what he wanted it to do. 

Things were different again, and if Clay had left them all in this room to let them lick their wounds, it wasn’t working. Jake wasn’t licking anything and Pooch wasn’t moving and Cougar was staring out the window. 

Jake looked away from him and sighed and stretched after finishing his Red Bull. It was the first time he’d moved in—he checked—hours and his back cracked. Cougar’s head turned in his direction. It stayed there too, for another moment, before Cougar faced the window again. 

Asking if Cougar was on lookout or just bored probably wouldn’t get Jake more than a shrug for an answer, so Jake didn’t. He deliberately stared at the screen for another moment, wondering if “living the A-team dream, minus the van” was the best caption for a dating profile. There was only one person he could ask since Clay wasn’t there and despite having faced down death on several occasions, one of them very recently, Jake wasn’t brave enough to start a conversation with Cougar about his romantic prospects.

For one, he didn’t think he could take it if Cougar gave him the go ahead. And for another, he wasn’t supposed to be asking the team, Cougar, for advice like that anymore. Also he really didn’t think he could take it if Cougar gave him the go ahead, even if Jake was close to feeling as blue-balled horny and frustrated as he had in junior high. 

It wasn’t like he could disappear into some sexy chat room either, not with the other two guys in the room and the only privacy offered behind the thin door of the small bathroom, which, yeah, blocked like no sound at all and Jake wasn’t quiet about things like that. Not even a little. 

He let out another sigh, thinking of the glorious session of whacking it that he could be having, how it would at least have passed the time, even if he knew it wouldn’t have taken his mind off anything. 

“He should have trusted us.”

Cougar’s voice was dry and rusty; sounding kind of like it hurt him to speak at all. It was so unexpected that Jake froze until his heart stopped pounding and his hand wasn’t reaching for the gun… that he’d left in the bathroom somewhere maybe? Then Cougar made noise. Cougar didn’t make noise, as a rule, as a _law_ , Cougar didn’t make noise unless he wanted to. But he moved his leg, just enough, that there was barest teasing sound of fabric and jangling metal. Maybe he’d misinterpreted Jake’s reaction, but Cougar wasn’t the type to calm Jake down with little warning shots. He was more the surprise-and-pounce type, giving no time for regrets or hesitation or a chance to even think about saying no.

Maybe Cougar didn’t know the rules anymore either, Jake thought, just for a moment, and then dismissed the idea and focused back on what Cougar had said.

So that’s what Cougar had been thinking about for the past few days. What Jake had been carefully not thinking about. 

Roque.

It figured.

He looked over. There was no sign that Cougar was watching Jake, not that Jake could see, but he didn’t doubt suddenly that Cougar _had_ been watching him. It was nice, reassuring, like Cougar was there with him, despite how things seemed. 

But he wet his mouth and then shrugged, like it was no biggie. Jake was good at that, deception, despite what people thought. He could stay in character like a pro when he had to; his characters were usually just a lot like him. He stared blankly at his computer. 

Roque was the number two, the guy who was supposed to enforce things. He was supposed to _know_ things. But he hadn’t known everything, had he? 

“Maybe he shouldn’t have.” It slipped out, accidentally, the way things always did when Jake was wired, and tired, and around Cougar.

He wouldn’t say Cougar stiffened, but it felt like it, like Cougar somehow went even more motionless. Jake straightened reflexively, though there wasn’t a target in his back and never would be, because he wasn’t Roque. He maybe just understood Roque. A little. 

Jake brought his hands up off the keyboard to speak. “I mean, he was one of us, and we did the right thing and we played along and what did it get us? What did it get him? Not a single thing he wanted, man. Pooch has Jolene and the little Pooch on the way. The Colonel’s got… well, revenge, and a seriously deadly chick who has him by the balls in a disturbingly kinky way.” It was worth a moment to contemplate that. “I’ve got,” he cleared his throat and stared at his screen until he found something suitable for mixed company to say, “the Petunias. Roque…” It was hard to say the name. “Roque didn’t have anything left to believe in.” Except for the team, and Jake… Jake hadn’t exactly been honest with them, had he? Maybe the others hadn’t been either. They all probably had had secrets of their own. 

Online dating was suddenly less compelling. Jake could put off sort of, almost coming out to strangers for another day or two. He raised his head and blinked to see that Cougar had turned to watch him, had actually turned to openly watch him which just wasn’t something Cougar did when they weren’t naked, or almost naked, or about to get naked. 

Jake smiled too brightly and pushed up his glasses. “But I guess you showed him.”

It was so weird that a brief, bloodthirsty grin made his heart pound hard against his ribs, or it would have been weird, if he hadn’t been used to the feeling of Cougar-caused heart complications. But then Cougar sat back, or gave the appearance of sitting back without actually doing anything. 

“And me?” He frowned. “What do I have?” 

Jake was either having a heart attack or three cans of Red Bull per day was his limit. All this attention was more than he could take right now. He turned back to his computer. 

“Well, you have the team of course.” His voice was husky too, though he’d never gone silent for as long as Cougar could. “And your rifle. And the ladies. You will always have the ladies, Coug.” He offered a sideways, somewhat real-looking grin and typed out, “There are four lights!” because he had to look busy and because he felt a little like he was being tortured here. 

“Pooch is a fortunate man.” Cougar was quiet. Jake nodded. He couldn’t imagine someone waiting for him like that. 

He realized he’d let the silence fall between them again and jump-started his mouth by licking the top of the Red Bull can for the last of the sugar and taurine—which was not bull semen, whatever Pooch said. Words fell out of him in no particular order. 

“But whatever gets you through it, man, no judgment. You can’t read through a kink meme and not learn that one. Except for those kiddie smut people, man, what is that?” Cougar probably had no idea what he was talking about, but that was okay, because Jake was talking for the sake of talking. “Way to kill the mood.” 

“Like the Petunias,” he went on, because there was nothing stopping him and there wouldn’t be and listening for Cougar to say things he wasn’t going to ever say was stupid and insane and Jake was _not_ insane. “It’s nice to know that no matter how crappy my life gets, they are out there, slaughtering teams with weaker defense.” 

The warm huff of breath that was almost a laugh made Jake’s chest tighten. He’d made Cougar almost laugh. 

“You are not worried about the Marigolds?” Maybe Cougar just liked any subject that wasn’t Roque. 

“We’ll destroy that bridge when we come to it.” But Jake didn’t think he was imagining Cougar’s new grin. It made him smile too, just for a moment, because it had been a long time since he’d talked with Cougar, not since before….

“Bolivia.” It came out of nowhere, a motherfucking surprise-and-pounce from a motherfucking ninja-ass sniper, and Jake jumped, damn sugar and bull semen. Cougar just went on, picking him off like ducks in a carnival shooting range. “You wore the shirt then, after what happened... with the children.” 

He’d gotten the shirt then too. Jake hadn’t realized Cougar had been paying that much attention but he supposed he should have. 

“Yeah well.” Jake deleted “There are four lights!” and wrote, “It’s a trap!” in its place. Then he rolled his shoulders and prepared to step into a gray area. “I had to have something.” 

Or the appearance of something. Something that wasn’t what he’d really had. 

Jake was such a liar. Pooch would be surprised how good at it he was. Roque shouldn’t have trusted him at all. Cougar should know better. And Clay… he could never tell with Clay. But Cougar… Cougar should know better. Jake was grateful and hurt that he didn’t, in a mildly schizophrenic sort of way.

It was unfair that Cougar was the one person who wouldn’t make fun of him for this confessional moment or tell him to shut up. It made obeying the rules, even the new, since-Bolivia rules of _do not touch Cougar_ , _do not stare longingly at Cougar_ , _do not tell Cougar that making sure he could deal was how you got through each day_ even more difficult. 

There wasn’t any sound this time, no warning at all, but Jake was well-trained and used to keeping track of Cougar’s every move. He lifted his head right as Cougar appeared at his side and remembered, a second too late, to close the window on his dating profile. 

Though Jake couldn’t see his eyes, he assumed Cougar was studying him from under the brim of his hat, so he looked over at Pooch who was sleeping peacefully under the spell of whatever drugs Cougar and Aisha had given him. Jake’s arm was still sore, from, you know, getting _shot_ , by _Aisha_ , and everything, not that anybody had offered him anything, thank you very much. He made a face. 

Cougar didn’t touch him, of course he didn’t, but he was there, and that meant something, so Jake responded.

“Sure, you…” Jake swallowed. “You guys were there. But everyone had their own problems and their own ways of dealing with them. We weren’t in the army anymore if you know what I mean, we couldn’t just do what we normally would do after a mission gone bad.” And it hadn’t just gone bad, it had gone spectacularly, phenomenally, colossally, ‘your life as you know it is dead and gone, son’-ally, bad.

It was a mistake to look up right then. Because he wasn’t thinking about getting shit-faced in some seedy bar or itching for a fight the way Roque or Clay might have, and neither of them had had a Jolene to write home to, so what they would have done after a normal mission gone bad would have been a sweaty, quiet fuck in the back room of one of those seedy bars, or in their motel rooms while everyone else was out; Cougar’s hand over Jake’s mouth when his fingers first pressed inside him because that’s when Jake was the loudest, and Cougar’s whispered Spanish against Jake’s chest—or against his back, depending on the position, sometimes under his ear as he’d jacked him. 

During those times Jake had found he wasn’t capable of talking much anyway when Cougar went down on him, which Cougar had seemed to like doing, a lot, and that whenever he’d returned the favor, losing himself in the musky scent and taste before he’d even sucked him down, Cougar’s fingers would run down the back of his neck over and over, though never hard enough to leave a mark. Not ever. 

Not that the very, very, very good sex had only happened after bad times, just that bad times had made it easier to ignore how Jake had avoided seeking the rest of team’s opinion by keeping this just between them. Having his reasons—that whole bullshit no queers or steers in the army thing for example, or being head over dick in love with someone who didn’t love him back for another--hadn’t made it right. It had probably been for the best that they’d all been so lost in Bolivia that he’d never hooked up with Cougar. It was probably for the best that they hadn’t hooked up since then either. Because openly turning to each other for comfort during a dark moment would definitely have violated some of the rules, if not the ones about being around the team, then certainly one of the ones about giving away too much to the person you were in love with that you weren’t supposed to be in love with. 

“Not in the army anymore,” Cougar repeated, not exactly asking but definitely curious, and bent down. He laid a hand on Jake’s equipment—his laptop, which was almost the same thing as what Jake really wanted and Jake went into stupid shock and couldn’t move or think to stop him. 

One click at the window and Jake’s I Wanna Sex You Up profile was enlarged and taking up the whole screen. 

He squirmed. He wriggled in his seat like a kid and this was why he sucked at poker. 

There wasn’t much there yet, he’d only just started to fill it out, not that it mattered to sharp, all-seeing sniper eyes. 

“It’s a complicated form,” he explained quickly. “And it’s a lot harder than you think to list what qualities you’re looking for when you can’t even list what do you for living—unless I put “Computer Genius”, which isn’t an occupation as much as it’s a title. For occupation I _could_ put “Vengeful Mercenary Pirate” but I don’t think I need to date the people who would respond to that. Or maybe I do….” He had a vision of Aisha aiming her gun at his crotch. “No. Nope. I do not.”

He took a deep breath, though it wasn’t like Cougar hadn’t noticed the shirtless, chiseled-from-goddamn-marble men all over the site’s header by now. They _did_ attract the eye. Jake was especially fond of the ones with dark coloring. 

The room got very, very quiet except for the sound of Pooch snoring away, oblivious to Jake’s antsiness and Cougar’s freaky, like really freaky, silence. 

He knew what Jake was into. This shouldn’t surprise him. But Jake got the impression it did. He shook his head. 

“I have to have something…” He tried and felt a teensy bit pathetic so he stopped. “It isn’t like she’s gonna stay on the Petunias forever.” He glanced over at napping Pooch. “And we really _aren’t_ in the army anymore, man.” 

Cougar still wasn’t speaking, not that Jake had expected him to, really, though something would have been nice. He didn’t need a yes or no from the team anymore, except for how he did, and he and Cougar had always been different. They’d had almost no secrets between them at all, and that wasn’t even much of one. It was just one tiny, itty bitty, massive nuclear shockwave of a secret.

“Things are different now. There aren’t the same rules anymore. Roque, don’t hate me or kill me cold as Vanilla Ice, but he got that before we did, okay? He went about it in ways that were wronger than making Han not shoot first or putting Indiana Jones in the 1950’s, but he got that. We aren’t the same since Bolivia.” 

He was talking too loudly and glanced over at Pooch before going on in a softer voice. “We aren’t like we used to be.”

He glanced up without meaning to. Cougar’s hat was still hiding Cougar’s eyes from him, which maybe wasn’t a bad thing. He looked down and stared at his typed warning to himself. It _was_ a trap, and he was falling into it one word at a time. 

“We are Do Not Exist and disavowed operatives. We’re _pirate ghosts_ from Scooby Doo. We can do whatever we want.” The Colonel hadn’t wanted to face that for a while, but Jake thought he was getting it now. He was only surprised Cougar hadn’t, but then, Cougar needed the team more than anyone else. He didn’t have anything but his rifle, no matter what Jake had said earlier to make him feel better. 

“Roque just went too far. He went No Rules instead of new rules, because you gotta have rules. Like _we are still a team for as long as we want to be and nobody can reassign us_ , and _you don’t keep things from the team_ , and _if Aisha is going to be part of the team now, then fraternization between team members is probably okay_.”

Shit. That thing that his old CO’s had always said he was going to do one day? He’d finally done it. He’d said too much. 

“You wanted to… fraternize,” Cougar’s hoarse voice seemed to trip on the word except that Cougar didn’t trip on anything, “with Roque?” If Cougar was teasing, there was no sign that Jake could see or feel. In fact, all he felt was a tingling at the back of his neck, like a red dot from a laser sight or Cougar leveling his aim right at his apricot—which, by the way, was a freaky ass thing for snipers to call the part of your brain that meant instant kill shot. 

“No!” Jake instantly denied then sighed. “Yes. Sometimes. When I was bored and jacking off sometimes I’d think about it…” There wasn’t a sound from the man next to him. Shit shit shit. Jake was swearing off Red Bull. And boredom. And being horny. And this motherfucking heart attack shit going on his chest. “You know how it is on long missions, man. You need to think about something. It isn’t like I ever stopped thinking about….”

He coughed. Normally he’d say “tits” in a situation like this. Tits were always a good cover for what he really wanted to say, even for Cougar, who was a bilingual bisexual badass. Triple B. Triple Strength. Triple the hotness. Jake hadn’t had a Hostess Snowball’s chance in hell. 

“Never mind, man. I am just a little stir-crazy here.” He whistled and pointedly hunched back over his laptop. He erased “It’s a trap!” and typed in, “No matter where you go, there you are”. Cougar didn’t move. If Jake held really still, he could _just_ feel the whisper of Cougar’s breath in his hair. 

“Make new rules?” Cougar asked, taking his time with it. Jake shivered and then nearly jumped in shock when he felt a touch at the back of his neck, right where he’d _known_ Cougar had been staring. Clay kept saying you couldn’t feel a laser target on your skin, but Jake had known it was possible. It was like being a Jedi; it was all in the mind—never in the midichlorians, because that was stupid. 

Jake had studied a long time. He was a Cougar-Jedi. He still shut his eyes and had to fight a moan when Cougar trailed a finger along the side of his throat. 

How could Pooch be _snoring_ through this? This was some earth-ending, new world building shit right here. Pooch was in the room. 

“Pooch is in the room. In the room with us. Pooch is in the room with us.” Jake could hear himself babbling, trying to stress this very important point. That was a rule in the old, good, bad, fucked up days. _Never around the team_. But it had been a Jake Only rule. He’d never thought Cougar might have had it too, that he might have wanted to break it. He couldn’t breathe. His chest was going to explode. 

“No somos lo que éramos.” Cougar’s finger stopped, but only so his hand could settle at Jake’s shoulder. Jake took a second and then gave the smallest possible shake of his head to indicate his agreement. No, they weren’t like they used to be. But this was different. This was new. “You want new rules?” 

Jake twitched and let his head fall back at the question, startling Cougar he was sure, though there wasn’t any sign of surprise on his face. It was more about seeing Cougar’s face at all. With his head back Cougar’s eyes weren’t hidden from him anymore. 

“More of what you’d call guidelines than actual rules,” Jake murmured, frowning a little because _he_ didn’t even understand what he was saying but he had to say something to keep from blowing up the world here. 

“The people in this team should not keep secrets.” Cougar was serious, Jake could tell, even with his view of him upside down and sideways. Cougar was watching him openly again, neatly taking down the old rules with one shot, and his dark eyes weren’t missing a thing. 

Jake wet his lips. He still kind of thought that might destroy the team. Then again, it was also what had almost destroyed the team. It was a lose/lose scenario, and if there was something he’d learned from both Captain James Kirk and Colonel Franklin Clay, it was that when there was no way out and no hope of winning—blow some shit up. 

Now there was something to believe in. 

Jake took a breath. “I love you, man.” That was all he meant to say, but years of thinking about it and three cans of energy drink wouldn’t let him stop now. “I’m not saying I’d have your assbabies, but I’d probably think about it if you asked me. Bolivia… Bolivia wrecked me, and not in a good way, but we aren’t there anymore. We aren’t anywhere except where we want to be and that’s… It doesn’t have to be anything, is what I’m saying.” 

He wasn’t lying. He wanted Cougar but he’d not had him for years and he was still ex-Corporal Jake Jensen, Tech and Fuck ups specialist. Now he just also Jake Jensen, Destroyer of Worlds. But since it was all out there now, he opened his eyes wide and gave his best impression of a puppy dog and moaned, pretty goddamn loudly, when Cougar let out a shocked little almost nonexistent breath and his thumb swept over Jake’s skin. 

There was going to be a shake up in the way of things, all right. But when wasn’t there? That was the usual for them. SNAFU, Jake thought, vaguely, as his mind processed how Cougar was looking at him and wondered if Cougar had been wearing his hat down low for more reasons that just to keep the sun out of his eyes. 

Jake didn’t have to ask what Clay was going to do, he was going to sigh, and shake his head, and tell them to keep it themselves, and then he wasn’t going to say anything else when he and Cougar didn’t. He—they—would adapt but stay together and rebuild and survive. They would get that bigger boat. 

Jake grinned, for real this time, because shit, the world _wasn’t_ ending, and Cougar wasn’t smiling, but he did make that small, careful laughing sound again, like he wanted to. 

“Man, this is the gayest shit I have ever heard.” Pooch remarked sleepily from across the room. Jake jerked so hard he almost fell out of his chair. Residual fear of being discharged made him leap to his feet to deny everything but then he just glared at drugged Pirate Pooch who glanced over at him with sparkly, glazed, stoned eyes before burying his face in his pillow. He didn’t seem to notice his awesome pirate hat, though it stayed in place. “Seriously,” Pooch complained to the pillow. “The only thing gayer would be if Vin Diesel walked in here carrying Streisand records. You guys need to take this over the rainbow shit elsewhere and let me get some sleep before these pills wear off.”

“Goddamn it, Pooch you cock blocking asshole!” Jake shouted at him finally then realized that even though Pooch was surprised and tranqued up, he wasn’t showing any signs of disgust, like a _real_ 21st Century soldier. He stopped, then turned when Cougar reached out next to him, touching his equipment, again, by firmly closing his laptop. Jake caught a last, fleeting glimpse of his unfinished dating profile and then refocused on Cougar. 

He pushed his glasses up. Cougar watched him for another moment and then jerked his head carefully toward the bathroom door. 

The door didn’t hold back sounds for shit and they both knew it. Jake looked over at Pooch again, who could have been passed out again for all he could tell, but then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Jake _was_ insane, because how could this turn out any differently than it had before? Except that Jake had said something this time, changed the rules, and Cougar was answering back, in every language and code he could, except, you know, English.

Because that wasn’t how badass motherfuckers like Cougar said ‘I love you’ back, Jake thought as the blood rushed right out of his head and to his cock. He wasn’t sure he could take imagining what might come next—though of course he followed Cougar to the bathroom, because he was a man in love and also horny like a fanboy who had seen Seven-of-Nine for the first time, and because Cougar tipped his hat back and the look in his eyes was still there, and because when the door was closed behind them, Cougar pinned him to it. 

It was a surprise attack with no warning, and it gave Jake no chance to hesitate or over think it or do anything but kiss Cougar back with a muffled groan and then throw his head back and make enough noise to wake Pooch up out of a coma when Cougar exhaled over his neck and gave him something to believe in.


End file.
